Giant's Bread

by Christie, writing as Mary Westmacott, Agatha

  ‘I didn’t eat your slice of bread, Jones. I wouldn’t do such a mean thing!’ ‘They always send it up wrong.’ ‘Look here, Catford’s got to have something to eat. She’s got an op. in half an hour.’ ‘Hurry up, Bulgy (an affectionate nickname, this) we’ve got all those mackintoshes to scrub.’

  Very different the behaviour at the sisters’ table at the other side of the room. Conversation there went on genteelly in frosty whispers. Before each sister was a small brown pot of tea. It was Nell’s business to know exactly how strong each sister liked it. It was never a question of how weak! To bring ‘washy’ tea to a sister was to fall from grace for ever.

  The whispers went on incessantly.

  ‘I said to her: “Naturally the surgical cases receive the first attention.”’ ‘I only passed the remark, so to speak.’ ‘Pushing herself forward. Always the same thing.’ ‘Would you believe it, she forgot to hold the towel for the doctor’s hands.’ ‘I said to Doctor this morning …’ ‘I passed the remark to Nurse …’

  Again and again that one phrase recurred. ‘I passed the remark.’ Nell grew to listen for it. When she approached the table, the whispers became lower and the sisters looked at her suspiciously. Their conversation was secretive and shrouded in dignity. With enormous formality, they offered each other tea.

  ‘Some of mine, Sister Westhaven? There’s plenty in the pot.’ ‘Would you oblige me with the sugar, Sister Carr?’ ‘Pardon me.’

  Nell had just begun to realize the hospital atmosphere, the feuds, the jealousies, the cabals, and the hundred and one undercurrents, when she was promoted to the ward, one of the nurses having gone sick.

  She had a row of twelve beds to attend to, mostly surgical cases. Her companion was Gladys Potts, a small giggling creature, intelligent but lazy. The ward was under the charge of Sister Westhaven, a tall thin acid woman with a look of permanent disapproval. Nell’s heart sank when she saw her, but later she congratulated herself. Sister Westhaven was far the pleasantest nurse in the hospital to work under.

  There were five sisters in all. Sister Carr, round and good-tempered looking. The men liked her and she giggled and joked with them a good deal, and was then late over her dressings and hurried over them. She called the VADs ‘dear’, and patted them affectionately but her temper was uncertain. She herself was so unpunctual that everything went wrong and the ‘dear’ was blamed for it. She was maddening to work under.

  Sister Barnes was impossible. Everyone said so. She ranted and scolded from morning to night. She hated VADs and let them know it. ‘I’ll teach them to come here thinking they know everything,’ was her constant declaration. Apart from her biting sarcasm, she was a good nurse, and some of the girls liked working under her in spite of her lashing tongue.

  Sister Dunlop was a dug-out. She was kindly and placid, but thoroughly lazy. She drank a great deal of tea and did as little work as possible.

  Sister Norris was theatre sister. She was competent at her job, rouged her lips and was cattish to her underlings.

  Sister Westhaven was by far the best nurse in the hospital. She was enthusiastic over work and was a good judge of those under her. If they showed promise she was reasonably amiable to them. If she judged them fools they led a miserable life.

  On the fourth day, she said to Nell:

  ‘I thought you weren’t worth much at first, Nurse. But you’ve got a good lot of work in you.’

  So much imbued by now was Nell by the hospital spirit that she went home in the seventh heaven.

  Little by little she sank into the hospital rut. At first she had suffered a heartrending pang at the sight of the wounded. The first dressing of wounds at which she assisted was almost more than she could bear. Those who ‘Longed to nurse’ usually brought a certain amount of emotionalism to the task. But they were soon purged of it. Blood, wounds, suffering were everyday matters.

  Nell was popular with the men. In the slack hour after tea, she wrote letters for them, fetched books she thought they would like from the shelves at the end of the ward, heard stories of their families and sweethearts. She became in common with the other nurses zealous to defend them from the cruelties and stupidities of the would-be kind.

  On visitors’ days streams of elderly ladies arrived. They sat down by beds and did their best to ‘cheer our brave soldier’.

  Certain things were conventions. ‘You’re longing to get back, I suppose?’ And ‘Yes, M’am,’ was always the answer given. Descriptions were sought of the Angels at Mons.

  There were also concerts. Some were well organized and were thoroughly enjoyed. Others –! They were summed up by the nurse on the next row to Nell, Phillis Deacon.

  ‘Anybody who thinks they can sing, but has never been allowed to by their families, has got their chance now!’

  There were also clergymen. Never, Nell thought, had she seen so many clergymen. One or two were appreciated. They were fine men, with sympathy and understanding, and they knew the right things to say and did not stress the religious side of their duties unduly. But there were many others.

  ‘Nurse.’

  Nell paused in a hurried progress along the ward, having just been told sharply by Sister: ‘Nurse, your beds are crooked. No. 7’s sticking out.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Couldn’t you wash me now, Nurse?’

  Nell stared at the unusual request.

  ‘It’s not nearly half-past seven.’

  ‘It’s the parson. He’s at me to be confirmed. He’s coming in now.’

  Nell took pity on him. The Reverend Canon Edgerton found his prospective convert barred from him by screens and basins of water.

  ‘Thank yer, Nurse,’ said the patient hoarsely. ‘It seems a bit hard to go on nagging at a feller when he can’t get away from yer, doesn’t it?’

  Washing – interminable washing. The patients were washed, the ward was washed, and at every hour of the day there were mackintoshes to scrub.

  And eternal tidiness.

  ‘Nurse – your beds. The bedclothes are hanging down on No. 9. No. 2 has pushed his bed sideways. What will Doctor think?’

  Doctor – Doctor – Doctor. Morning, noon and night, Doctor! Doctor was a god. For a mere VAD to speak to Doctor was lese-majesty and brought down the vials of wrath on your head from Sister. Some of the VADs offended innocently. They were Wiltsbury girls and they knew the doctors – knew them as ordinary human beings. They said good morning blithely. Soon they knew better – knew they had been guilty of that awful sin ‘pushing yourself forward’. Mary Cardner ‘pushed herself forward’. Doctor asked for some scissors and unthinkingly, she handed him the pair she wore. Sister explained her crime to her at length. She ended thus:

  ‘I don’t say you mightn’t have done this. Seeing you had the exact thing that was wanted, you might have said to me – in a whisper, that is – “Is this what is needed, Sister?” And I would have taken them from you and handed them to Doctor. No one could have objected to that.’

  You got tired of the word ‘Doctor’. Every remark Sister made was punctuated with it, even when speaking to him.

  ‘Yes, Doctor.’ ‘102 this morning, Doctor.’ ‘I don’t think so, Doctor.’ ‘Pardon, Doctor? I didn’t quite catch.’ ‘Nurse, hold the towel for Doctor’s hands.’

  And you held the towel meekly, standing like a glorified towel horse. And Doctor, having wiped his sacred hands, flung the towel on the floor where you meekly picked it up. You poured water for Doctor, you handed soap to Doctor, and finally you received the command:

  ‘Nurse, open the door for Doctor.’

  ‘And what I’m afraid is, we shan’t be able to grow out of it afterwards,’ said Phillis Deacon wrathfully. ‘I shall never feel the same about doctors again. Even the scrubbiest little doctors I shall be subservient to, and when they come to dine, I shall find myself rushing to open the door for them. I know I shall.’

  There was a great freemasonry in the hospital. Class distinctions were a thing of the past. The d
ean’s daughter, the butcher’s daughter, Mrs Manfred, who was the wife of a draper’s assistant, Phillis Deacon who was the daughter of a baronet, they all called each other by their surnames and shared the common interest of ‘What would there be for supper, and would it go round?’ Undoubtedly there was cheating. Gladys Potts, the giggler, was discovered to go down early and surreptitiously to filch an extra piece of bread and butter or an unfair helping of rice.

  ‘You know,’ said Phillis Deacon. ‘I do sympathize with servants now. One always thinks they mind so much about their food – and here are we getting just the same. It’s having nothing else to look forward to. I could have cried when the scrambled eggs didn’t go round last night.’

  ‘They oughtn’t to have scrambled eggs,’ said Mary Cardner angrily. ‘The eggs ought to be separate, poached or boiled. Scrambled gives too much opportunity to unscrupulous people.’

  And she looked with significance at Gladys Potts, who giggled nervously and moved away.

  ‘That girl’s a slacker,’ said Phillis Deacon. ‘She’s always got something else to do when it’s screens. And she sucks up to Sister. It doesn’t matter with Westhaven. Westhaven’s fair. But she flattered little Carr till she got all the soft jobs.’

  Little Potts was unpopular. Strenuous efforts were made to force her to do the more disagreeable work sometimes, but Potts was wily. Only the resourceful Deacon was a match for her.

  There were also the jealousies amongst the doctors themselves. Naturally they all wanted the more interesting surgical cases. The allotting of cases to different wards gave rise to feeling.

  Nell soon knew all the doctors and their various attributes. There was Doctor Lang, tall, untidy, slouching, with long nervous fingers. He was the cleverest surgeon of the lot. He had a sarcastic tongue, and was ruthless in his treatments, but he was clever. All the sisters adored him.

  Then there was Doctor Wilbraham who had the fashionable practice of Wiltsbury. A big florid man, genial in temper when things went well, and the manners of a spoilt child when he was put out. If he was tired and cross he was unnecessarily rough and Nell hated him.

  There was Doctor Meadows, a quiet efficient GP. He was content not to do operations and he gave every case unfailing attention. He always spoke politely to the VADs and omitted to throw towels on the floor.

  Then there was Doctor Bury who was not supposed to be much good and who was himself convinced that he knew everything. He was always wishing to try extraordinary new methods, and he never continued one treatment for more than a couple of days. If one of his patients died, it was the fashion to say: ‘Do you wonder with Doctor Bury?’

  Then there was young Doctor Keen, who had been invalided home from the front. He was little more than a medical student, but he was full of importance. He even demeaned himself to chat with the VADs, explaining the importance of an operation that had just taken place. Nell said to Sister Westhaven: ‘I didn’t know Doctor Keen was operating. I thought it was Doctor Lang.’ Sister replied grimly: ‘Doctor Keen held the leg. That’s all.’

  Operations had been a nightmare to Nell at first. At the first one she attended, the floor rose at her, and a nurse led her out. She hardly dared to face Sister, but Sister was unexpectedly kind.

  ‘It’s partly the lack of air and the smell of the ether, Nurse,’ she said kindly. ‘Go into a short one next. You’ll get used to it.’

  Next time Nell felt faint, but did not have to go out, the time after she felt sick only, and the time after that she didn’t feel sick at all.

  Once or twice she was lent to help the theatre nurse clear up the operating theatre after an unusually big op. The place was like a shambles, blood everywhere. The theatre nurse was only eighteen, a determined slip of a thing. She owned to Nell that she had hated it at first.

  ‘The very first op. was a leg,’ she said. ‘Amputation. And Sister went off afterwards and left me to clear up, and I had to take the leg down to the furnace myself. It was awful.’

  On her days out Nell went to tea with friends. Some of them were kindly old ladies and sentimentalized over her and told her she was splendid.

  ‘You don’t work on Sundays, do you, dear? Really? Oh, but that isn’t right. Sunday should be a day of rest.’

  Nell pointed out gently that the soldiers had to be washed and fed on Sundays just as much as any other day, and the old ladies admitted this but seemed to think that the matter should have been better organized. They were also very distressed at Nell’s having to walk home alone at midnight.

  Others were even more difficult.

  ‘I hear these hospital nurses give themselves great airs, ordering everyone about. I shouldn’t stand that kind of thing myself. I am willing to do anything I can to help in this dreadful war, but impertinence I will not stand. I told Mrs Curtis so, and she agreed it would be better for me not to do hospital work.’

  To these ladies Nell made no reply at all.

  The rumour of ‘the Russians’ was sweeping through England at this time. Everyone had seen them – or if not actually seen them, their cook’s second cousin had, which was practically the same thing. The rumour died hard – it was so pleasing and so exciting.

  A very old lady who came to the hospital took Nell aside.

  ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘don’t believe that story. It’s true, but not in the way we think.’

  Nell looked inquiringly at her.

  ‘Eggs!’ said the old lady in a poignant whisper. ‘Russian eggs! Several millions of them – to keep us from starving …’

  Nell wrote all these things to Vernon. She felt terribly cut off from him. His letters were naturally terse and constrained and he seemed to dislike the idea of her working in hospital. He urged her again and again to go to London – enjoy herself …

  How queer men were, Nell thought. They didn’t seem to understand. She would hate to be one of the ‘Keeping themselves bright for the Boys’ brigade. How soon you drifted apart when you were doing different things! She couldn’t share Vernon’s life and he couldn’t share hers.

  The first agony of parting when she had felt sure he would be killed was over. She had fallen into the routine of wives. Four months had passed and he hadn’t been even wounded. He wouldn’t be. Everything was all right.

  Five months after he had gone out he wired that he had got leave. Nell’s heart almost stopped beating. She was so excited! She went off to Matron and was granted leave of absence.

  She travelled to London feeling strange and unusual in ordinary clothes. Their first leave!

  2

  It was true, really true! The leave train came in and disgorged its multitudes. She saw him. He was actually there. They met. Neither could speak. He squeezed her hand frantically. She knew then how afraid she had been …

  That five days went by in a flash. It was like some queer delirious dream. She adored Vernon and he adored her, but they were in some ways like strangers to each other. He was off-hand when she spoke about France. It was all right – everything was all right. One made jokes about it and refused to treat it seriously. ‘For goodness’ sake, Nell, don’t sentimentalize. It’s awful to come home and find everyone with long faces. And don’t talk slush about our brave soldiers laying down their lives, etc. That sort of stuff makes me sick. Let’s get tickets for another show.’

  Something in his absolute callousness perturbed her – it seemed somehow rather dreadful to treat everything so lightly. When he asked her what she had been doing, she could only give him hospital news, and that he didn’t like. He begged her again to give it up.

  ‘It’s a filthy job, nursing. I hate to think of your doing it.’

  She felt chilled – rebuffed, then rebuked herself. They were together again. What did anything else matter?

  They had a wild delightful time. They went to a show and danced every night. In the daytime they went shopping. Vernon bought her everything that took his fancy. They went to a Paris firm of dressmakers and sat there whilst airy young duches
ses floated past in wisps of chiffon and Vernon chose the most expensive model. They felt horribly wicked but dreadfully happy when Nell wore it that night.

  Then Nell told him he ought to go and see his mother. Vernon rebelled.

  ‘Oh, darling, I don’t want to! Our little short precious time. I can’t miss a minute of it.’

  Nell pleaded. Myra would be terribly hurt and disappointed.

  ‘Well, then, you’ve got to come with me.’

  ‘No, that wouldn’t do at all.’

  In the end, he went down to Birmingham for a flying visit. His mother made a tremendous fuss over him – greeted him with floods of what she called ‘glad proud tears’ – and trotted him round to see the Bents. Vernon came back seething with conscious virtue.

  ‘You are a hard-hearted devil, Nell. We’ve missed a whole day! God, how I’ve been slobbered over.’

  He felt ashamed as soon as he had said it. Why couldn’t he love his mother better? Why did she always manage to rub him up the wrong way, no matter how good his resolutions were? He gave Nell a hug.

  ‘I didn’t mean it. I’m glad you made me go. You’re so sweet, Nell. You never think of yourself. It’s so wonderful being with you again. You don’t know …’

  And she put on the French model gown and they went out to dine with a ridiculous feeling of having been model children and deserving a reward.

  They had nearly finished dinner when Nell saw Vernon’s face change. It stiffened and grew anxious.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said hastily.

  But she turned and looked behind her. At a small table against the wall was Jane.

  Something cold seemed for a moment to rest on Nell’s heart. Then she said easily:

  ‘Why, it’s Jane. Let’s go and speak to her.’

  ‘No, I’d rather not.’ She was a little surprised by the vehemence of his tone. He saw that and went on: ‘I’m stupid, darling. I want to have you and nothing but you – not other people butting in. Have you finished? Let’s go. I don’t want to miss the beginning of the play.’